Chapter 15
NO REST FOR THE DEAD
PASHIM
The wind tears at my clothes and stings my eyes.
Strange that I feel such discomfort considering that I’m dead, but then this place is an in-between land that follows its own rules.
Rules that I’m only now beginning to understand.
I’m forced to walk at an angle, leaning forward to battle the elements intent on halting my journey while Priti walks beside me, her stride straight and easy, untouched by this unnatural weather.
She looks across at me and smiles. “We can rest soon. There is a waypoint not far from here. How are you feeling?”
Her voice reaches me clearly over the shrieking wind, but I have to shout to be heard.
“Tired! Is that normal?”
Her brow furrows slightly as she considers my question. “Yes. It’s normal. The farther we go toward the conjunction, the more this place will try and pull your soul back. But it can’t keep you. I won’t let it.”
The wind drops suddenly, and the world falls into blissful silence. Thank the gods. I stand tall, my pace picking up now that I’m no longer having to fight for each step.
“Priti, how are you here?” Have I asked her that question? I feel that I have, but I can’t recall her response. A fist squeezes my chest.
“It’s all right, Pashim. Memory will be spotty while we cross the sands.”
I look down at the sand beneath my boots. “How…When…”
She takes my hand and squeezes. “Focus on me. On my voice. I’ve got you.”
“But how? How will you…” Why was she here again?
“I can get you out. You’re connected to her. You have a bond and a destiny that was cut short by forces that shouldn’t have sway over life and death. But we’ll change it. We will fix it.”
“Priti, how are you here?” Have I asked her this before? Have I pondered asking her before? My head aches.
“We’re almost at the waystation,” she says.
I glance about, and the world is a gray, shifting terrain that makes my stomach twist and my head spin.
“Look at me,” she says, her voice in my head now.
I fix my gaze on her face, on the shimmer that wreathes her and the stars that bloom in her eyes. The world steadies.
The ground beneath my feet stops shifting.
The nausea ebbs then vanishes, and the fog that’s clouded my mind dissipates, leaving me suddenly clear and sharp.
I remember.
My eyes fly wide, and Priti beams at me.
“There you are,” she says.
And there she is. Yama…the new death.
I’m not sure how long we’ve walked since Priti pulled me from the hollow in the forgetting tree. Yes, that’s what she called it. The hollows are where souls go to become dormant. To simply…stop. And according to Priti, this place…this in-between limbo is one of many pockets like it.
“Yama is gone,” she tells me. “He left a long time ago but not before sending out a seed. I came from that seed.”
It explains why she was not given an anchor, for her death would make her Yama. And Yama needs no anchor.
Now as we walk down a winding cobbled road toward a stone tower in the distance, my mind is clear enough to learn more. “You told me that you are the new god of death, the new Yama. But if Yama has been gone all this time, then who has been managing the dead?”
“Yama was his name; my name is Priti,” she says.
“But I suppose that doesn’t sound very death-like, does it?
” She taps her chin. “I’ll have to think up something more…
forbidding. And as to your question…well, no one.
Which is why so many in-between pockets have opened up.
Nature has done its best to manage the spirit world.
I suspect Yama expected his replacement to arrive much sooner than I did.
But time doesn’t always work in the way that even gods expect.
So now it’s up to me to gather the dead and get them to Pitru loka or Naraka, depending on their deeds.
” She sighs. “It’s a process, and both realms are a mess right now.
Not ready to open to new admissions, so…
Yeah. I’m working on it. But we have to get you where you need to be first. Back to the land of the living. ”
Yes, I remember now. I’m connected to Leela by a soul thread. I have a role to play, but…I’m not sure what that is, and Priti has no clue either. All she can tell me is that my death was untimely. That I should have lived many more years and that my destiny has yet to be fulfilled.
The tower moves closer. Literally.
I come to a halt, my pulse pounding.
“It’s all right,” Priti says. “The Waystation is reacting to my presence. Come on.” She reaches for my hand. I allow her to take it and lead me through the dark doorway into the white stone building.
One blink and we’re in what looks like a tavern. There are people sitting at wooden tables drinking and eating. A bar stretches along the far end of the room, and I smell food. Real food.
“Priti, what is this place?”
“It’s called a Hearth. Every in-between pocket has one. Nature’s way of providing comfort to the lost. Not every spirit can find it, though. But you would have…eventually.”
“I climbed into a forgetting tree.”
“You would have woken up. It isn’t in your nature to stay asleep, Pashim. You would have seen her in your dreams, and you would have woken up. Your destiny is too strong.”
“What is it? My destiny?”
She shrugs. “No idea. Come along.” She leads me to the bar, where a young woman with long, dark hair is wiping down the surfaces. The air behind her shimmers now and then.
Priti approaches her with a smile. “Hello, Kumarali.”
The woman looks up with a smile. “Oh, hello, dear. Do I know you?”
Priti shakes her head. “No, but I know of you. We have someone we love in common.”
The woman frowns slightly. “I…I’m not sure who you mean. I…” She presses a hand to her chest, her frown deepening a little before it melts. “What can I get you?”
Priti smiles softly. “Two of the house specials, please.”
“All right, dear. Find a seat, and I’ll bring the food over.”
We pick a table close to the bar, and Priti sits so she has view of it.
“Priti, what’s going on? Who’s that woman?”
She sighs. “You’re not the only soul I came to fetch. She’s another whose life may not have been cut short but who I refuse to leave here a moment longer.” Her gaze drifts to mine and locks. “That woman is Leela’s grandmother, and we’re taking her with us when we leave.”
Supper is a filling meal of meat stew and soft bread rolls. How can I feel full like this when I have no body to fill? I’m dead.
“You need to stop thinking of yourself as dead,” Priti says, sipping her tea.
I look up from my half-full bowl. “Then what should I think of myself as?”
She tips her head to the side with a smile. “A free soul. One that is no longer trapped in the cage of flesh. Well…not unless you choose to be again.”
“Reincarnation?”
“It’s an option. There are many options now that I’ve taken over from Yama.” Her gaze flicks to the bar where Leela’s grandmother is speaking to another free soul.
“Why does she remember her name but doesn’t remember Leela?”
“Because she’s chosen to forget,” Priti says.
“It’s different for every free soul. Some remember everything about their mortal lives, and others forget over time.
Some choose to forget aspects, and others cling to pain.
There are choices even on this side of the veil that serve to shape us.
Free will is eternal. Well…mostly.” She shrugs and sips her tea.
“And you learned all this as soon as you died?”
“Most of the information was just…there. Waiting for me to access it. There’s a lot of knowledge. I can feel it. But it comes forward when a question is asked.” She looks to the bar once again. “Leela’s nani looks…happy.”
“What will you do? Leave her here?”
She exhales heavily. “I mean…she’s not in danger.
She’s made a home for herself here, and removing her from it while I’m still restructuring the spirit realms might prove more damaging than helpful.
” She nods to herself. “Yes. Best to leave her here for now. Tonight we rest, and tomorrow we continue our journey.”
Our journey out of this in-between place. To the land of the living. I still can’t believe it.
What if it’s not real?
A block of ice forms in my belly.
What if I’m still in the hollow?
“You’re not,” Priti says. “This is real.”
I stare at her wide-eyed. “You read my mind?”
“I didn’t mean to.” She looks sheepish. “You were thinking very loudly.” She pours more tea into her cup and sets the pot down between us. “Pashim, you’re here with me, not stuck in the hollow. Trust me. Besides, if you were dreaming, why have me play death?”
She has a point. Why would my mind associate her with death? No. This is real. I am here. I am not in the hollow. I relax into my seat with an exhale. “How much further do we have to go?”
“Distance and time have little meaning here. But we will get to where we need to be when the time is right.”
“What does that mean?”
She smiles, her brow pinching as she tips her head to the side. “I’m not entirely sure.”
“All right, we get to where we’re going, out of this in-between place and into the land of the living, but I’ll still be dead. How can I possibly be of any assistance to Leela and…Does this mean she’s in trouble?”
Her expression sobers, and she presses her lips together.
“The dead have more power than they realize, especially when they choose to work together, but spirits…the souls of the departed are mostly egotistical. So focused on their own pain, on their own stories, that they end up isolating themselves. They find themselves alone even when they’re surrounded by others like them.
The souls that make it to the in-between will either crawl into a hollow and go dormant or find a waystation and live, in the only way the dead can, by mimicking life.
And those that remain earthbound…well, there’s little to be done for those souls until they choose to cross. ”
“I didn’t get a choice.”
“No, you didn’t. You were killed by a pishachas, and anyone killed by them is sent straight here.” She chews on her cheek, her eyes narrowing as if she’s just thought of something.
“What is it? What are you thinking?”
She smiles brightly. “Nothing important. Eat up and then we can get some rest.”
“Rest? I’m dead. How much rest do I need?”
“You didn’t think you needed food and yet here you are, consuming it.”
I look down at my empty plate. “You have a point.”
“Even the dead need sustenance, Pashim. They need sleep. Trust me on this.”
Trust…Yes, I trust her. And yet I know she’s keeping something from me. Something vital. I suppose I’ll have to trust that she’ll share it with me when the time is right.